


Long Delayed

by Sineala



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps Esca thinks Marcus has not noticed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Delayed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [downtohades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtohades/gifts).



Esca has not said anything. Esca does not say anything.

Marcus has seen how Esca looks at him, how Esca has always looked at him. Even when he was a slave, even when he was Marcus' slave, there was something in his eyes beyond the fire, beyond the hatred. But he said nothing. What would he have said then? What should a slave say to his master? No, no, Marcus knows why he did not speak then -- but he is free now, and still he says nothing.

Perhaps Esca thinks Marcus has not noticed. Perhaps he thinks Marcus would fear him, would blanch to think of fucking a man. Of loving one. Perhaps Esca thinks that Romans do not do this. Perhaps he has listened to the slander and jokes about how no man would dare lie with someone greater than a slave-boy, and perhaps he has never stopped to think that all the talk means that men indeed do these things. That Marcus does. That Marcus would, with him.

It is not as if their peoples do not each spread rumors about the other, Britons and Romans both, and each equally wrong. Marcus knows not to listen to them now. Lutorius met Esca once, and told Marcus, privately after dinner, that he was as good as mad for thinking that he could be friends with a Briton -- another Briton! But Esca is not Cradoc. Cradoc never trusted him. Cradoc betrayed him. Cradoc would have killed him. With Esca he wandered, erred, and for a time they balanced on the knife-edge of betrayal. But in the end Esca had not let him fall. And that was when Marcus knew he had given Esca his own heart.

There remains only this between them, this unease.

He is not good with words. He is clumsy with feelings. This does not mean he does not notice them; he is not, after all, as stupid as that. He only does not know what to do about it. He is no fine poet, to make a love-song. He is only a former soldier, with a former slave who loves him, whom he loves, and neither of them have said anything to the other about it.

He wonders how long this can possibly last. Will they pine away forever here on their little farm? Will Esca decide the easier path is to leave him, to take a wife? He does not know.

Matters come to a head one wintry night. The chill has settled into his bones, making the wound in his leg ache and Esca, ever diligent, offers to rub at it for him.

"You need not," says Marcus, a reflexive refusal. "You are not my slave."

But Esca reaches for him anyway. "I am your friend," says Esca, and the tone of his voice, so wistful, makes it clear that he wishes they were more, even though he probably thinks he is being subtle about it. Well, so does Marcus; but if Esca does not want to say it, then he will not, either. Perhaps Esca prefers it that way.

Esca's hands linger on his leg; it is an odd kind of caress, Marcus supposes, but it must be as much as Esca permits himself.

The night is cold, and when they bed down, Marcus can tell that across the room, Esca is shivering.

"Come here," he says, and at once Esca is rigidly still. But after a minute Esca stands, and then he is sliding under the blankets and furs to lie next to him, but very carefully not touching him -- a feat, given the size of the bed.

At last Esca stops shivering, but he is still faraway. "Thank you."

Marcus smiles. "You could have come before, you know. You are welcome at any time."

The little breath Esca draws is audible, nearly a gasp, and after an instant Esca checks himself. "Forgive me," he says. "I thought, for a bit, that it sounded as if you meant -- but I know you didn't--"

He is tired of this. He is tired of the pretenses. They must have words after all.

"I did."

The words are simple, and they silence every other objection. He should have said them long ago.

Then the bed shakes as Esca starts laughing. "Oh!" he says. "And all this time I have been-- and you have been-- when we could have been-- why didn't you _say_?"

"Why didn't you?" challenges Marcus, and Esca laughs again.

"Point taken. I suppose--" Esca lingers on the words-- "that I was afraid. Of what it would do to us."

"We have been everything else to each other, until now," says Marcus, into the darkness. "You hated me. And now we are friends. Why not this?"

"You make a compelling argument," Esca says, and then his lips are against Marcus' skin, kissing him lightly, one, two, three. "And what else do you do, my Marcus?"

Esca's Marcus. He likes the sound of that, and he grins as if his face will break and throws his head back, baring his throat.

"Anything," he says. "Anything. Everything. With you." And he means it.


End file.
